A Human Pluripotent Stem Cell-based Platform to Study SARS-CoV-2 Tropism and Model Virus Infection in Human Cells and Organoids.

We present an experimental platform comprised of cell and organoid derivatives from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs). A Spike-enabled pseudo-entry virus infects pancreatic endocrine cells, liver organoids, cardiomyocytes, and dopaminergic neurons. Recent clinical studies show a strong association with COVID-19 and diabetes. We find that human pancreatic beta cells and liver organoids are highly permissive to SARS-CoV-2 infection, further validated using adult primary human islets and adult hepatocyte and cholangiocyte organoids. SARS-CoV-2 infection caused striking expression of chemokines, as also seen in primary human COVID-19 pulmonary autopsy samples. hPSC-derived cells/organoids provide valuable models for understanding the cellular responses of human tissues to SARS-CoV-2 infection and for disease modeling of COVID-19.
PMID: 32579880 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

Source: Cell Stem Cell - June 18, 2020 Category: Stem Cells Authors: Yang L, Han Y, Nilsson-Payant BE, Gupta V, Wang P, Duan X, Tang X, Zhu J, Zhao Z, Jaffré F, Zhang T, Kim TW, Harschnitz O, Redmond D, Houghton S, Liu C, Naji A, Ciceri G, Guttikonda S, Bram Y, Nguyen DT, Cioffi M, Chandar V, Hoagland DA, Huang Y, Xiang J Tags: Cell Stem Cell Source Type: research